Advent
by DeusExTranshuman
Summary: Look through a prism, and you see the components of light. Look around you and you will see the world, not as it is, but how you believe it appears. It is a polite fiction to believe that anything is truly how it appears, but do you dare pull down the blinds and look into the Abyss beyond...? Or what lurks within it...?


Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is purely for recreational purposes.

AN: Ok! Lo and behold, I am not dead yet! For anyone interested, I'm sorry about the lack of updates on the site, but work and life in general has been keeping me busy, not to mention plot bunnies and ideas for other stories that I posted on other sites. Still, sorry for the relative lack of activity along with not updating one of my other stories, as I'm sure many were hoping for.

As a point of fact, I'm about halfway through another update for 'House of Brockton Bay' and I'm also working on another chapter for 'Trapped in a Voidborn Nightmare'. Not sure when either of them will be finished, but I'll post them when I can find the time to check them over.

Anyway, as for this new story, it was an idea I got after finding an interesting RPG online called Mage: The Ascension and it's supplement pieces, including 'A Guide to the Technocracy'. This story is based on the latter more than the former, with a bit of a few twists that I fully plan to explore later down the line.

Therefore, I hope you enjoy this opening chapter and what follows!

 **XXX**

Looking in the mirror, I couldn't help but blink as I tried to wrap my head around just what the hell was going on with my life.

Well, life was a bit of a misnomer since it only referred to things in the singular. Lives, would probably have been a better term to use, but the metaphysicals were giving me a headache just considering the implications and making my mind run at a million miles an hour. Theories, and 'What-ifs', and possible explanations were all I really had, not true facts to explain the sudden changes that had taken place, the most drastic and visible of them being the one I was looking at in the mirror.

Specifically, that I was looking at the face of a fifteen(-ish) year old girl with a face covered in freckles and hair so red that it I honestly thought someone might have coated every individual strand in tomato juice just to fuck with me. I had already pinched myself, twisted a finger until it almost broke, bit down on my tongue, and a dozen other things I could think of to try and wake up from what almost felt like some kind of dream that was just too surreal for words. This was especially true when I considered the fact that I had the lives of two people running through my mind: One being that of a thirty-something year old man that had been killed in a car accident and the other was that of a fifteen year old girl. A part of me absently wondered where I came into it, which side of the equilibrium my thoughts and personality came from as I continued looking myself over, running hands over bare skin as I did so.

My best theory was that I, ins so much as 'I' could apply, was made from a blending of these two streams of memories, of Personas, that had been forced together and fused... Somehow. It could have been some cosmic accident, some joke done by a ROB, or the work of some cruel fate, I had no idea and I honestly wasn't sure I even _wanted_ to have an idea of that given the sheer shitfest that I seemed to have landed in. My memory was as clear as crystal, no fog and no traces of forgetfulness in me, so I knew everything that both of my lives had lived. As such, I knew where I was, who I had been, and who I now was with exacting detail. Of course, with the outside context knowledge I had, I honestly questioned the utility of that, given the simple fact that I now lived in an utter shit-hole of a universe that was destined to go even further down the shitter when the local God-like idiot went nuts.

Simply put, my name was now Erica Smith, and my newest place of residence was Brockton Bay.

Joy.

A snort escaped my lips at that, the sound utterly mirthless, but still carrying some level of amusement with it as it echoed around the empty room as I looked over my form just a bit more before turning away and making my way for the rest of the small house. Truthfully, the old Erica had been in brilliant shape before I had come along, with well toned muscles and a decent amount of fat on her body to have all the right curves in all the right places. Good legs, round ass, a C-cup bust and a light tan all came together to give me a good appearance of good living and having taken care of myself, while still having some decent looks to go with it. I could honestly approve since, both because I had long since gotten into the habit of exercising in my free time, and because I still liked women even after whatever magical event had put me into this situation.

Stepping out of the bathroom, I walked through the upper landing before walking into my room, curtains still drawn shut and the light on as I glanced at a clock.

"Four thirty..." I muttered to myself as I frowned slightly, remembering old habits that came from the part that I identified with the most. Not really surprising, since thirty years of memories beat fifteen quite handily, but an interesting thing to note. It was still annoying, since a part of me hoped to lose that particular habit after spending most of my life waking up at stupid times in the morning. I wasn't even joking, I'd even gone through a phase where I woke up at three in the morning, every morning, for several years. It had been useful, but annoying beyond belief, a paradox of feelings, but that was just the way it was.

Idly, as I walked into my bedroom, I grabbed a shirt and pulled it over my upper half. Habit was probably the only reason I did that, since I was alone in the House. Erica lived alone for the most part, supported by her Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents on both sides of the family. Her parents had been killed in an Endbringer attack on Lisbon by Leviathan during 2008, leaving her an orphan that was supported by an allowance from various family members. They dropped by every once in a while, to check up on me and make sure things were moving along, but usually left me be. If something came up, I could contact any one of them with a large list of emergency contact details that Erica had been forced to memorize. It basically meant that I had the run of the house, so long as I was responsible and didn't burn the place to the ground, of course.

However, the best thing about it was the privacy that it offered, especially as I took a seat on the ground, my legs crossed, eyes closing an instant later as I made contact with the floor. An instant later and I was focusing inwards, meditation wasn't something I knew how to do, but I knew a few breath exercises that I figured could make do for the time being. Slowing down my body, calming my heart and relaxing my body as I turned to look at the wisps of something lurking in the back of my mind that I had felt shrouding every sense.

With every breath, something became clearer as I looked at the wisps, growing minutely stronger with the whispers of something else getting just a bit louder. It coiled through my mind, a mist soaking into every thought and feeling that seemed to be looking for something, what it was looking for, I had no idea. I had a guess of what it might be, not anything solid, but a guess could be tested and was certainly better than nothing.

A thought came and went, and the tendrils of fog surged as I gave them exactly what they seemed to be looking for in the mental image of a single spark.

A Trigger.

My eyes snapped open at that single point, gasping for more air as everything suddenly just... _Shifted_. For an instant, everything seemed _wrong_ as the word turned into some bizarre artwork done by M.C. Escher. The walls of the room didn't have the right dimensions, the light above me wasn't hanging directly down but bent to one side while my bed was suddenly in the upper right corner of the room. Everything was twisted, but I knew to the core of my being that nothing had changed. The world opened up before me and I _Saw_.

Words floated through my mind as things continued to change, as new understandings slotted in with the old until the old was nearly completely subsumed by it. Awareness blossomed into something far grander than I could have described with words, the beginnings of a vast tree taking root and starting to grow. I felt my eyes roll back into my sockets as it continued, self-awareness coming as I suddenly became almost painfully aware of my own body and every detail of it, followed by the inner workings of my own mind before it moved outwards. Time suddenly came into crystal clear focus, a bone-deep certainty of knowing the exact time at any given moment reaching forth as saw the faint outlines of what-had-been dancing through the air. Empty space suddenly became less empty as I felt the world around me, not classified by the emptiness, but by the distances between objects, knowing where they all were with an equally bone-deep certainty. I felt something roll down from my nose, reaching my lip as I flopped back, finally overwhelmed as my body went limp as tension finally escaped my muscles. Information flashed through my mind a second later as I felt my head hitting the soft, carpet-covered floor. I blinked my eyes back as I looked at the ceiling painfully aware of the blood now trailing down to my lips, and the _exact_ chemical composition of it.

A quick glance at a seemingly distant table, a bit of what little focus I had, and I suddenly became aware of what it was made of, down to the smallest screw and the exact materials were used. I could pick out the scratches normally invisible to the naked eye and tell exactly what had caused them from the residue materials in said scratches. Strength returned to me for a second as I tried to sit up, only to be forced back as more blood came, my head assaulted by more information, more raw data as I became aware of every Force acting upon myself, and what Forces were being produced by my body. I tasted the Cooper tang of blood in my mouth, a bitter taste as I gasped for air, feeling so out of my depth that it wasn't even funny. Something that should have already been apparent from the fact that more phantom images flickered through the air, not of things that had happened, but of possibilities for the future, domino effects that could do anything. Ghosts fluttered, plotting dozens of paths through unoccupied space and leaving me to wonder what I had just witnessed.

I still didn't have time to get my bearings, blood somehow escaping my mouth in defiance to gravity as a thin stream suddenly went straight up, then bent at a ninety degree angle to hit the wall next to the door... Which was on the floor...

An idle thought made me question just how the hell that was possible, but it didn't last. The next bout of weirdness suddenly came, my senses going crazy as things skittered across my vision. I could smell the purple and taste Beethoven's Ode to Joy. I felt my mind bend and fracture under the pressure of seeing things that couldn't be defined by the limited scope of mortal science, nor even by the mortal mind. Wonders and terrors, all lurking within the same space as my bedroom, yet not. All separated by barriers, constructed by the very difference of physical laws on either side of them.

And I could see the cracks in the barriers, the places where wisps of exotic energies filtered through, clinging to the air for a tenth of a second before disappearing back into the ether. If I watched, I could see the monsters that lurked beyond the Human consciousness, and I could see them looking back with what could only be described as curious disinterest and apathy. They neither cared nor wished to get involved, but they're very physicality hurt to look at, but those were the rare few that stayed for more than a few seconds before passing onwards. A minute was the longest, but it passed and they left me to suffer for leaping into the abyss without forethought.

By that point, I could feel the dried blood on my skin, drips coming out of my ears, my nose and even running like tears and then drying out as streams formed before hissing into non-existence in mid-air. My throat went dry and my muscles remained limp as something finally came, what I felt was the last of my torments that beat like the heart of a great beast.

 _Thump-thump... Thump-thump..._

It sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once, so massive yet also ever present. With it, I felt the beat resonate with... _Everything_. A look around my room and I saw it, motes of shining silver lurking under the surface of everything around me, even under my own skin as I felt it flow like blood. I could even see it in the air, floating like a gaggle of miniature clouds that moved to unseen air currents, yet drawn to something that I could not see, but could feel in the distance like a beacon in my mind.

It was so very bright, like a silver star in my mind that forced me to look away as instincts I never knew I had came forwards. The pressure slowly disappeared as the world returned to normal, yet forever different. I still felt it, all of it, lurking under the surface and needing only a single thought and a bit of will to tear that flimsy barrier of normality asunder.

Nine words came to mind as the perspective of normality resumed. Nine words that I knew, followed by other words that formed links in chain-like sentences that offered insight and wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Nine words that were enough to cause me to break into a giggling fit before transitioning into half-mad laughter, born of words written down in a life no longer my own.

Space. Time. Life. Force. Matter. Mind. Dimensions. Entropy. And Prime...

Prime. Primal Essence, the lifeblood of existence and what I felt crawling through everything around me. It was there, and it was something I remembered as I held my gut in hilarity, not paying attention as more came, more words I recognized and even more that I didn't. It didn't matter, not at the moment, not as I laughed and laughed in sheer _relief_.

I laughed, for the simple reason that whatever Cruel God that had dropped me into Worm may not have been so cruel after all. Especially when they have left me a gift, a potential for something more, from a setting where those gifted with Enlightenment guided and protected Humanity while fighting a secret war against everything that could go bump in the night. The knowledge of Methodologies, Procedures, Conventions and skills all came, either in their entireties or just as the foundation to build upon later.

I had been handed the keys to the libraries of the Technocratic Union, and with that, knowledge best left untouched by normal, mortal hands.

Probably a good thing that I doubt I counted among the ranks of normal mortals then, wasn't it...?

 **XXX**

By the time I had stopped giggling and felt strength return to my body, an hour had passed and I was mostly struggling to get air into my lungs as the clock struck five. I didn't even need to look, didn't even need to glance at a clock to know the time even as I got up from the ground, head full of ideas even as I took myself in and just breathed. I could see it all, from the particular matter in the air, to the way my lungs and diaphragm flexed and shifted with each breath drawing air into my body. I could feel the signals dancing through limbs while a connections formed between neurons, flashing with signals of new information burned into long-term memory. Seeds for the future, things I'd need to work on in order to expand to what I believed could be their ultimate potential.

It was honestly beautiful.

Shaking my head, I finally made a move to get up from the ground, clutching my side for a moment before I forced down the pain from old practice and new Insight as I applied a slight bit of pressure to the right spot. An instant later, the pain disappeared from my side as I stood up straight, taking a deep breath without any discomfort and relishing it, simply enjoying it as I looked at the world with my eyes open to things beyond the pale of mortal comprehension. I knew that a thought was all it would take, a single instant of focused will and the walls of reality would come crashing down, letting me see the bare skeleton of existence and what lay on the other side of those bones.

"Damn..." I breathed out as I took a few steps back, collapsing into the closest chair and running a hand over my face and slicking back my hair, freshly wet with sweat from my brow. A part of me still struggled to believe what was happening around me, what I was doing and the luck I seemed to have with such a boon. The sheer knowledge that I now held was probably enough to make me into one of the higher-level combatants in this universe, a boon that might see me live. A thought came, and I frowned as I considered the word choice and just how wrong that might be.

"No... Not a boon... A curse, perhaps, but definitely not a boon..." I muttered to myself for a moment, enjoying the relative silence even as the I heard the background of the unseen world around me. And that, perhaps, was the point. This knowledge of the greater universe and how it worked. This... Enlightenment, it came with a cost to be paid in one form or another. Already, I could guess at what it cost people, what it had cost others in the past. Admittedly, the cost wasn't something horrible like one might get in a Deal with a Devil, but in some ways, it was. After all, how do you unlearn something? Knowledge and secrets could not be unlearned, even if there were ways to remove such knowledge and understanding from a person's brain, nothing could be done to remove the... Taint, for lack of a better term. Once someone was Enlightened, then that was it, even erasing their memories of it would do nothing to remove the ability to see beyond the limited comprehension of Man.

That ability, the ability to see all that stalks Humanity's collective nightmares, would remain in someone until the day they died.

Until the day I died...

I sighed at that morbid thought, well aware of the fact that I'd probably be seeing creatures that even Lovecraft couldn't imagine for the rest of my life. I grimaced slightly at that, not looking forwards to that kind of experience, but I could already think of a few ways to cope while also skimming over some bits and pieces that I had gained. A few things stood out, ways to cope with it and things like that, mostly just meditative exercises that could be done in ten minutes to keep things straight. Apparently, it was used by those who specialized in Dimensional Science, or DSci, to ensure that they didn't lose all their marbles too quickly when experimenting with new tech. It kind of reminded me of Cthulutech, where researching new Arcanotech generally led to madness, but with safeguards and not being as permanent.

A snort of amusement escaped me at that thought, madness that wasn't permanent? That was just the Human experience in a nut-shell. The thought still brought a smile to my face, turning me away from more morbid thoughts as I turned the chair around to face the desk. An unnecessary glance at the clock was enough to tell me that I had plenty of time to go about cleaning up after my little trip through Escher's imagination. Absently, I went to wipe my face with a hand, not wanting to leave dried blood on my face. Skin met skin, causing me to pause as I glanced back down at my hand to see something strange, followed by a glance at the wall by the door and various spots on the wall, all which I had seen my blood hit.

All of them, my hand included, were completely devoid of any blood.

Turning around, I quickly grabbed the first thing I could find with a reflective surface before looking into it. I couldn't help but stare as I found myself looking at a spotless face in turn, no signs of either new or old blood at all. A turn of the eye, and I saw my room once more, I saw it exactly as it was and couldn't help but wonder just what was going on around me. The knowledge imprinted within me was raging, theories coming as I considered them and extended my senses. The Technocracy didn't subscribe to the whole shit about Magic and the like, and I rather liked the idea of Enlightened Science, but that didn't mean that they were blind to the effect even if they didn't like naming the cause as Magic. They knew a thing or two on how to feel it, follow it and track it, even without tech. All things I knew as part of the imprint.

And yet, I felt nothing having changed, nothing that could point out that something was wrong with the way this had worked out. I frowned at the picture I was getting even as I turned my attention inwards for a second, still keeping an eye on the world around me as I did so. A sudden self-awareness coming to me as I pushed a bit of energy into it, wanting to look deeper even if it did cost me some fuel, but the possibility of potential answers and clues was something I couldn't pass on.

However, as I came out of the trance-like state, I felt my brows knit together as I considered what I had seen. No burst veins or broken capillaries, nothing that could account for sudden blood lose, hell, there wasn't even any indication of recent blood loss or the replenishment of lost blood.

Leaning back in my chair, the new information was something I had to consider, certainly not without thorough investigation or other resources. I grimaced at that, resources were something I was rather lacking in at the current moment, and were something I'd need to get at some point in the future. I could already see the beginnings of some ideas forming, illustrating how I could do as such, but feeling like such assemblies were, for lack of a better word, crude.

Shaking my head, I dispelled those thoughts for the time being, turning my attention away from the distant future and back to the present, along with my immediate future within this world of Parahumans, Endbringers, Shards and Entities.

For some reason, I couldn't help the smirk onto my face. It felt natural.

 **XXX**

Once more, technically, the Technocratic Union didn't do Magic, they did Enlightened Science.

Fundamentally, from the outside looking in, I could honestly say that they were basically the same thing, just worked through different means. Magic working from belief to ensure that it's shit worked, meaning that if you believed that a rocket could appear from your hand hard enough, it might just happen. Admittedly, it was a bit more complicated than that, and trying to do that without prior training or practice was bound to end in one of three ways: One, nothing happening; Two, a lot of flashing lights, a big waste of energy and _then_ nothing happening; Or three, your friends have to peel your greasy smear of a corpse from the wall, assuming it hadn't been turned into paste. Hell, there was even a chance of those things happening anyway, regardless of how well practiced someone was with a 'Spell'. Even someone who had practiced it to a masterful degree still had a small, non-zero chance of suddenly going boom if they weren't careful.

Enlightened Science worked a similar way, but applied through scientific methods to allow repeatable results even from people that didn't believe in it. Hypertech was the manifestation of this, advanced tools that let them to things either well beyond current technology, or outright break reality if they had enough power to push into said devices. Still, developing Hypertech could still result in the same three outcomes of nothing, flashy nothing, or turned to paste, but in a more controllable way. Of course, trying to develop ad-hoc Hypertech in the middle of a combat situation would likely result in option three coming true, even if there was a small chance of pull it off if you were lucky enough.

It all came down to applications of knowledge, understanding and belief in what worked. Now, I personally believed in things I could understand. If I couldn't understand something, then I'd try and figure it out until I could before moving on to the next thing, and so forth. This lead into the reason I liked Enlightened Science, since it explained things, how they worked and how one phenomena related to another one, in detail as well.

Of course, there were downsides...

"Damnit!" I cursed as I yanked my hand back, having been zapped by the machine I was currently working on. It wasn't much, a few random bits and pieces that I had thrown together from junk I'd found lying in the attic of the house I now stayed in. The house itself had once belonged to one Uncle or another, so what I had found was technically his old shit, but I had my doubts about whether or not he would even give a damn, given the layers of dust I'd found on the stuff. I'd found three sewing machines, a dozen lamps, a radio and even what looked like an ancient TV that used a Thin Film Transistor system as opposed to the more modern LCD or Plasma screens. Admittedly, that was after several hours of searching, but it was a good start when coupled with the surplus of tools I'd found in the garage connected with the house.

Even so, I still glared at my first creation as I sucked on my slightly singed finger. It was big, bulky and ugly as sin, with no possible chance of it being mobile without extreme effort, and probably wasn't something you'd want to have in a firefight. Hell, the damned thing even looked like a reject from a Modern arts museum, considering the fact that it was made from several parts that had been hot-wired together and soldered to a modified circuit board and connected to the monitor. However, so long as it worked, I could tolerate it, if only just.

I still glared at it as feeling slowly returned to my finger as I seriously considered just smacking the thing with the largest wrench I could find and willing it to work. I forced down that temptation, mostly since I knew just how badly that could turn out, I knew the risks of trying to do something like that. Even if I knew enough background to know how to throw around a fireball or three, the Paradox waiting for me if I made even a single mistake wasn't something that I wanted to think about. The temptation was still there, however, and I didn't doubt it would leave me anytime soon.

"Fuck... Why can't things just be simple...?" I questioned to open air as I kneeled down and returned to my work, absently wrapping more insulation tape around a pair of joined wires before pining them in place. Inspecting the work, I glanced over the make-shift transformer connected to a plug I'd cut from one of the sewing machines. Wires were spliced together to make it possible, but the transformer was needed to jump the voltage to the correct levels to make sure it worked. Even then, I'd already taken a few precautions to ensure that nothing happened, nor that anything could be tracked back to me. Looking over the cable, I spotted the other piece of my work, fuses strung together like firecrackers to ensure that, at the first sign of something going wrong, that I wouldn't end up either causing a blackout, or an explosion. The monitor stood some distance away, having been ripped open and removed from its former casing, standing on top of a table with a dozen more cables connecting it to the device I had just been working on. Said device filled the centre of the room, a ring of gold made from the hammered remains of some old jewelry that I'd found in a dusty box at the very farthest point from the door in the attic. Around it, uninsulated Cooper wire twisted around it and linked to an Iron core that came from a broken section of a golf club. More wires connected it all together, insulated this time, but lines of silver and a few other bits and pieces of gold were also present while long chains of mathematical equations racked over it, either carved or laid out with more wire.

However, the most important pieces were the eight gems that decorated the ring, with two more on the top and bottom of the core shard. Said gems weren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd run the math, having done it for several hours this morning before even attempting this. They all checked out, even after I triple checked them after that, but that still didn't change the fact that there was still a pretty damned big chance of this all going to shit the moment I turned it on.

For a moment, I considered simply doing things the hard way before throwing that idea away. Timeline didn't line up and I didn't have the time to do that, I needed shortcuts, especially with new year being around the corner for 2011. The attack on Canberra by the Simurgh was coming up in February, followed by Leviathan in May. That meant that I had five months to get something together before an Endbringer hit Brockton Bay. Absently, I was aware of the imprinted information in my head, helping me run a pro/con analysis of the situation and whether it was better to stay or leave. Currently, I had a lot in favor of just making a break for it, but I disliked the idea. It would take too long to move elsewhere and set up, time that could be better spent fortifying and expanding infrastructure.

And right now, I needed that infrastructure.

"Here goes... Something..." I mutter to myself as I sighed, finally pressing a switch mounted by the side of the monitor. Almost immediately, I felt the hairs along the back of my neck to stand on end, goose-bumps going up and down my arms even as a static hum filled the air, coming straight from the transformer that I had already set up. A heat haze seemed to almost engulf the device for a moment as miniature bolts of silver lightning danced across connections and wires. The smell of ozone and burning rubber filled the room even as I grimaced, a hand going to my neck and pressing down on a pressure point, significantly reducing my sense of smell in the process. I could still smell the overpower scents, but less than a moment ago as I looked at the screen I'd ripped from the old monitor. As the scent grew stronger, I could only watch as the whole thing seemed to blink on and off, static filling it, but clearing with each pulse of activity as I started seeing what I needed.

Honestly, it wasn't much, just a blank screen with a few dots placed around it, seemingly at random. To anyone else, it would have been nothing, less than nothing even. However, to me, it was near-priceless information as I picked out the details with each pulse, memorizing information as I saw it and keeping a careful eye on several elements that came and went.

After exactly fifty seconds, lines had appeared from all the dots towards the centre of the image, a number of smaller dots having appeared and all looking to be exactly what I hoped for. Closing my eyes, I grinned as I could still see it, the map being visible through closed eyes like a snapshot of the present. Perfect.

Opening my eyes again, I went to press the button to turn off the power for the device, wanting to save it or the raw materials that I'd made it from for other things. However, before I could even brush my finger against the button, Murphy decided to make an appearance.

Suddenly, the fuses I had set off were exploding like firecrackers as a bolt of lightning shot off from the transformer, glowing red hot in turn as I saw the wiring start to fuse and melt from the work it had done. Three bolts, one being a near miss for my shoulder, shot out and hit the concrete walls of the garage, barely missing the various mounds of junk. A forth came and went, honing in on the monitor and causing it to burst into fragments of plastic, glass and metal. I cursed as I dived for cover, very aware of the danger I was suddenly in as I looked at the central device of my little experiment.

Immediately, I didn't think, didn't consider options, I just ran as it remained in place. It hovered slightly above the ground, crackling in a haze of energy with arcs of lightning dancing between its connections for a second as I saw it glow internally as heat spilled out. I could feel the energy dancing off it, even as I took cover inside the main house, hairs standing on end even as I expected an explosion of one kind or another.

Yet nothing happened. Ten seconds passed and nothing happened. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. A minute. Three minutes.

By the ten minute mark, I slowly crept out of my cover, cautious of what might happen, but still very curious of what had become of my little experiment. I slowly stalked through empty corridors, body tense and ready to run at the first sign of something wrong, something being out of the normal even as I urge myself forwards with slow, deliberate movements that betrayed my nerves. Eventually, I reached the door to the garage, still open from my own run and letting the smell of ozone waft into the corridor beyond. I could smell it, along with the smell of burning rubber and plastic. I almost heaved a sigh of relief at that, reaching out with my own senses to see if anything was amiss. That time, I didn't bother suppressing a sigh of relief as I finally swallowed some spit before marching onwards.

The garage wasn't actually much changed from when I had ran out of it, fearing the Paradox effect that might cause a sudden detonation in the local area. Admittedly, there were a few more burn marks on the walls and floor, some cinders on the back of an exposed, wooden chair and a hole through that same chair, but little else. Well, little else besides the steaming, semi-molten lump of metal that now decorated the concrete ground in the middle of the room. Taking a few steps closer, I could feel the half-smile slide over my face as I crouched down, taking a closer look to see what had once been a vital, if crude, replica of a standard piece of Technocracy equipment. Then again, I had run the math, I knew that it wouldn't have survived for long and had made the choice to do this anyway, on the off chance of something working out.

And it had worked, I now knew the locations of several Nodes within the local area, all waiting to be tapped.

 **XXX**

You know, after having the kind of info dump that I had, it had become remarkably easy to slip from shadow to shadow and remain unseen.

Not truly surprising, given the sources of said information. I mean, look at the Technocratic Union and you can see just how it might come to pass that such was the case, what with one of its members being the New World Order. Said group were actually the reason that the Men In Black were even a thing in their home universe, given that such individuals were either clone soldiers with Olympic-level physical attributes, or even more dangerous Enlightened Operatives pretending to be Men In Black. With my knowledge-download, I had gained some of those same skills to effectively disappear into a crowd and perform the needed Procedures to effectively erase myself from the senses of the Masses.

As such, I could and had walked straight passed a bunch of Merchants partially drugged up to the gills with something and they hadn't even noticed me. Mind you, I had to wonder if it would have mattered either way, given the fact that I had my doubts about if even two out of the thirty of them were lucid enough to even recognize someone had just walked past them.

Shaking my head, I pulled the heavy backpack further up my back, tightening the straps even as I moved on, glancing at the watch around my wrist to check the time, an old habit made unnecessary by the constant clock ticking away in the back of my mind. It was already eleven at night and I knew no one would be looking for me, I was supported by an allowance from my extended family and they called once every few days during the evening to ensure I was alright. Not only that, but the old Erica had only just moved to the Bay a week ago and didn't know anyone in the local area. Along with that, I wasn't due to start going to any of the local schools for another week, at the very least. I'd be starting in Winslow on the seventeenth of January, about two weeks after the beginning of the second term of this year.

I'd happily admit that the timing was incredibly useful, since it gave me time to find my feet and build up an infrastructure to work with further down the road, but both old and new paranoia was shouting at me that something was off about it. I could probably guess what it was, the work of some ROB giving me a grace period to get my feet under myself so that I could hit the ground running. It was a nice act from a potential being that could have been known for having a cruel and twisted sense of humor, prompting me to make a mental note of keeping an eye open for anything else like that. Admittedly, I knew this was the Worm universe, the presence of Brockton Bay and memories of Capes all pointed to that, but that was just the broad strokes of the story, I needed details.

However, to get those details, I needed equipment and time. Time was something I currently had, even if it was limited in a significant manner by my decision to remain in Brockton Bay, for a number of reason, but it was something I had. Equipment, on the other hand, that required both materials and power. I could get the former through scavenging what I could, but a great many pieces would require me to use Procedures to construct from random scraps. Time-consuming, difficult and very inefficient for what energy I had, but with very little chance of a Paradox effect taking place and causing some kind of injury, at the best case.

It was another reason I liked Enlightened Science, in what you could pull off a Procedure and still survive it so long as you followed it properly. Spells, just like Magic, had a chance of triggering a Paradox effect regardless of whether you got the Spell correct or not, making it far more unpredictable, even if you could casually twist a Spell around and change it. An example of this might be turning a Fireball Spell into something akin to a Flamethrower, all just boiling down to an application of willpower. Though, powering through the Paradox effect was still possible, just requiring a lot of power to do so, something I didn't have and would restrict me from doing anything too big until I got major reserves behind me. As a point of note, such reserves were several orders of magnitude greater than what could be contained within the average Human body, Enlightened or otherwise. Sure, there were ways of augmenting this, enhancing the amount that a Human could hold, but such methods were out of my reach at the moment, especially since I had decided against going the Mage route for fear of being reduced to a greasy stain by even a successful Spell.

Same thing could be said for power, in that certain pieces of equipment couldn't be run with _just_ electricity. Some of them required something more to work as anything but a slightly more advanced version of current era tech. Said power source was the same stuff that I was currently looking for, and was the key to solving my problems since, once I had it, I could probably bulldoze my way through the Paradox so long as I wasn't too Vulgar about it. Otherwise known as pushing the limits of what reality could happily accept when I told the Laws of reality to bend over a barrel. Which was a pretty high limit, considering the Parahumans all running around and being accepted by the Masses, but a limit all the same.

Turning a corner, I walked into an alley and paused for a second, gathering my bearings before I kept moving, slipping into shadows that concealed me from the streetlamps. Having chosen to wear a grey hoodie and a pair of dark blue jeans, I could practically disappear into the dark of the night very easily. Even with the bulky backpack slowing me down slightly, I could still cover some serious distance as I mentally flicked through Procedures that could augment me physically, at least for a limited amount of time.

Continuing to walk, I stepped around random black bags and fallen rubbish bins even as I kept walking, a mental map in my head being compared to the one I had memorized from the screen of the device I had built. Mental calculations let me work out distance and direction from the memorized image, but I still had to do the legwork as I stalked through the back alleys of the Docks and other areas of town. Sure, I could consider it as a good way to familiarize myself with my current location, but that didn't mean I had to like it, especially with the smell of drugs, shit, piss and alcohol wafting in the air.

Not exactly the best of smells to work with, but I'd probably have been happier if I didn't know at least twenty three different ways of blocking it out. That said a number of things about the Technocratic Union, things I'd rather not think about at the current time, lest I let my rather delicately balanced mental equilibrium come crumbling down. Still, quickly running through the right mental exercises to allow it to work and suddenly lacking the smell of rancid, unwashed Human shit floating into my nose, I carried on with my self-appointed task. I still sighed at the difference it caused as I kneaded the bridge of my nose, already knowing it was going to be a long night, not helped by my path of self-discovery, self-delusion as to my current situation and no small amount of self-denial as to the reality of the situation. Hell, a part of me still refused to believe this was anything but a bad dream caused by some kind of food poisoning.

So, yeah, the joys of life...

 **XXX**

AN: Ok, so there is the first chapter done and dusted. A fair bit of world building, but that's probably going to continue with the story, since I don't expect anyone to be well versed with the RPG I'm using as source material.

Still, I'll be elaborating a fair bit in story about both the past events in the RPG and my own spin on them, twisted to fit the universe of Worm.

However, as always, I hope you enjoyed this story. Feedback is welcome and I appreciate constructive criticism to help improve both present and future stories. Until the next chapter!


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